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Amp repairers of the world

Lesser Boogie.

I've just heard from @Jus Lukin that there are a trio of Superquads on their way to me - which is VERY exciting In the meantime, I've started getting my head round pre-glue internal carves of the two mahogany wings. I'll wait for the Superquads before I sort the bottom wing - to be honest, as much for the challenge at accommodating the wiring looms as the switches themselves - but the weight relief of the top wing is more straightforward as there are no cable runs or anything to worry about: So this afternoon, I will be getting my little (but super) Proxxon drill press out and hog some mahog out with one of my larger Forstner bits. Which is useful, because the first job on @Fishman 's Wal save will use the same drill . If only I had done this much 'in-cycle efficiency' when I had a proper job With the back wings trimmed now to within a couple of mm of final size, I couldn't help a quick mockup: I have a good feeling about this...I think it's going to be a delightful little thing (of course, with the Superquads, a delightful little thing fully capable of knocking a house down)

I’ve got a Sansamp pedal incoming. Bought from a nice fella called Mick on Facebook. Should be here any day now...

Sorting out my study I realise that converting to 5 strings a few years back means I have left some old friends behind. Oh well ...

We're always talking about how bad couriers are, but I'd like to shout out that DPD did a great job. I had arranged to send a bass to Germany late December. They picked up the parcel on Monday 21st of December, then promptly cancelled the delivery due to the border shutdown. I managed to get an update from a *real person* who told me not to worry and it would all be sorted. After a few worrying days, it popped up again and went on its merry way, only to face the worrying possibility the new owner would face expensive import duties (or the parcel would be returned to me). DPD fought my corner and in the end the parcel was landed in Germany just before the deadline day. It was delivered yesterday to its new owner with no fees, import duties or damage. Well done DPD.

Right, having read the thread, jeez RATM, chill the fk.

The neck is sublime 😍

After my G&L experiences, I'd half forgotten that when you order and pay for a bass, it usually arrives. Really pleased. After the wispy TRBX neck, the BB424 neck feels much more substantial: 2mm wider at the nut, 2.5mm thicker at 1st fret, 3.5mm thicker at 12th fret. The body feels much bigger, too, the cutaways having three fewer frets to reach. And the reward is in the tone - exactly what I wanted. BANG. (or do I mean CLANG?) The strings have red silks and are as rough as £¥€&, so I'm guessing these are Rotosound 66s? To sound like my idea of what a bass is the TRBX needed Chromes and its bridge pickup ignoring. This sounds right with rounds and both pickups on. The condition is excellent (except for the whiff of B&H Silver) and I'm very happy with the price I paid (only slightly more than half of what the TRBX cost)

Always an opportunity to put up a photo of a very young Bassace, from 1962 modelling a three point metal bridge.

Side dots and lines done!

Probably, because in the vast amount of instances where companies have been bought out, said company’s quality goes down and corners cut in order to increase profitability and recoup the money spent by the parent company in acquiring said company. It happens all the time, and if these moves went well all the time and quality stayed the same or went up then people wouldn’t be so pessimistic, but they don’t, they usually end up going south.

If I remember from my college days 🤓, When a tree grows in water or wet conditions the structure is constantly full of water so it doesn’t grow as tight grained as it would above ground or in hot conditions

Not once it's dried out. It has a higher water content, so the same volume of wood weighs less. /amateurscience!

The swamp?

The upper wing doesn't need any cable channels or control chamber provision building in and so can be weight-relieved and glued on first. Normal stuff, I hog out the weight-relief chamber with a Forstner bit: Then tidy out the edges with a sharp chisel so the edges act as the guide surface for the diddy flush bit (Axminster - I use this SUCH a lot) that is used then to deepen the chamber to final dimension: And now this can be glued to the neck/top assembly. I use side clamps to ensure the laminations with the neck are tight and then the spool clamps to make sure the top to back joint is gap free. I'll know whether it is all gap free in the morning once the clamps can come off. Fingers crossed!

Aside from wattage differences, the VT 1969 has two discrete channels and also has the ability to mix the two and also a switchable mute. The VT Bass 500 has the Bite, mid shift, blend and headphone functions.

Progress = I have realised that it is beyond me. I am at peace. And title is mine and always shall be It is the only way I can contribute to this forum, but I love this forum.

You don’t have to be a Chinese company to move production out to China. The thing is that companies like Aguilar and Mesa are usually privately owned and understand their products and customer base. Of course, they want to make money, but they don’t need to make it all right now and they are just as concerned about their reputation and the continued excellence of their products. As soon as they are bought out by a larger company, their amps are no longer the core business and ‘Wall Street’ rules start to apply – its all about quarterly earnings, short term profits and cutting costs. The parent company understands the brand rather than the product and the new CEO just wants to make quick profits to justify his annual bonus rather than ensure the long-term reputation and viability of the company (in three years time he will have moved onto another job anyway). I am sure that there are exceptions, but this is why these mergers are rarely a good thing for these smaller high-end producers.

I was hoping you'd say that, either natural or stained I think that grain will look lovely 👌🏼 this is yet another classic @Andyjr1515 thread 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

A week later.

I've not had their offer yet, but I'll accept three bob, or half-a-crown if they baulk.

I'm due a new custom TT imminently and, as I was dithering a bit over p/guard colour, I ordered 2 additional colours as well as the 'standard fit' item. I know, I really am that shallow

I would respectfully suggest that agedhorse is being a technician here. In my day job I am exactly the same. It's vital to be 100% accurate and I will always correct people when they refer to something zero rated for VAT as being exempt. To the layman they may seem the same but they are radically different. I am reading a techician ensuring he has full understanding of what is happening and making sure that every aspect is covered. Frankly, that is providing the benefit of proven knowledge and experience.

Wow, this post reads as an Agatha Christie! Can't wait for the next move...

Guys, I hope your optimism wins out over my pessimism. Eden, SWR, Fender, Trace Elliot, Genz Benz all suffered a change of fortune when they were either bought by larger companies, or had "money men" parachuted in. I've been using Aguilar amps for many years. When you find something that just works you don't want it to change. . . . and it will change. I know all companies have to be profitable, but Korg's only focus will be the bottom line, like CBS when they bought Fender. It must be tough, running a manufacturing business in New York these days and paying US wages, so my guess is they'll be moved to China within 2 years and look at the trouble Warwick is having with it's new Chinese made Sadowsky basses! I'm typing this on a Lenovo lap top (Chinese owned), I have a Volvo (Chinese owned) in the drive and my pension scheme was sold to a Chinese company shortly before I started collecting! After the tone, the thing I liked about Aguilar was they're not made in China.

Fender bought SWR and then stopped production ( they later did the same with Genz Benz), and Marshall bought Eden. I don't see any reason why Korg would screw over Aguilar. It's not like they have any other bass amp brands, unlike a company like Fender.

Don't you just love Basschat sometimes... 👍😊👏

I did some work on the neck. I like to lacquer before frets go in on a maple board.

Our band has 2 divisions " She's Right, I'm Left" is our acoustic offering. Maple Road is the full electric band offering. Heres a clip of our acoustic virtual 2020 New Years Eve show. Our set starts at 36.40. Headphones or speakers recommended. Blue

The first one of those describes itself as having " A leg locking mechanism that will leave your jaw on the floor". That's going to result in a trip to A&E. And now, back to the thread..

Couldn’t resist an excuse to post a pic of the NS5H2 - oh, and the case of course! One clip replaced where one failed !!

Buy it in the UK though!! 🙂

Interesting documentary about New Model Army that popped up in my YouTube feed. Justin comes across as a cool dude. Worth checking out.

Not sure if this qualifies as a GB but this is my Lowden built Goodfellow Classic 5. Sounds and plays wonderfully.

... or economically worthwhile.

I'm not aware of anything in the Korg portfolio which is a competitor with Aguilar. When Gibson and Fender were running so many great builders into the ground, they usually were competitors in the same section of the market. Korg don't stand to gain anything by destroying Aguilar, nor do they have a history of acquire and destroy.

This is like one of those competitions where everyone gets a prize 😁

WAL dataBass

BTW for the eagle-eyed: it's a standard four-hole plate but I removed the preamp, so it's purely passive now, with the jack socket on top, a full-range tone knob (with 0.1uf cap), and a three-way pickup selector. I replaced the stock Sandberg P pickup with an Aguilar 5P-60CL, and the bridge pickup has been rewired in parallel.

The Source Audio C4 is what you want to lay your hands on - the EHX Mono synth is old hat really now compared to what the C4 can do. I had one a while back and encountered all of the issues you mentioned and so got rid of it. The C4 is game changing IMO.

I just bought a backup battery for my Jazz bass.

I was just thinking the same. Maybe I'm a soppy git but this sort of thing just warms my heart.

Great piece of kit - liked mine so much I ended up getting two! If you come up with any great patch ideas, feel free to share them on: Effects patch ideas for the Zoom B3N and B1(X)-4 - Effects - Basschat

Too late guys, sorry! Just got this bad boy safe and sound to its new home.

Full confession: I don't really play much fretless, but I do play upright, which suffers from the same problem of not having any frets... The way that I work on intonation is to use a drone; you can use Garageband or similar and find a synth sound that's as close to a plain sine wave as possible. Make a loop of a sustained pitch and make that note your key centre, then work on playing the major scale in that key really slowly (minims/half notes at 40bpm is a good place to begin) and you'll begin to hear when each degree of the scale is in tune relative to the drone. Some notes of the scale (root, 4th, 5th, octave) will be easier to gauge than others. Lather, rinse, repeat. Another key feature of fretless bass is vibrato - I learned a lot by slowing down recordings of Jaco (other fretless players are available) and really honing in on what his vibrato sounds like at 50% speed before bringing the tempo up.